1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication devices and methods of controlling the same, and more particularly to a communication device for automatically setting a router configuration on a network formed by a plurality of routers and a method of controlling such a communication device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, it has been required to provide each port of routers with a different address in constructing a network. Further, each terminal should be provided with a host address in a network address set for each port of the routers.
For instance, as a method of setting the IP address of a terminal, an automatic setting using a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, RFC2131) server is known. However, it is common that the host address of the DHCP server itself is set in accordance with a network address of each port of the routers which network address is preset manually.
Japanese Patent No. 2679613 discloses a circuit for automatically setting a network address. According to this circuit, an unused address is obtained based on path information on the premise of receiving the path information, and addresses are not automatically settable from a state without any address setting.
In the case of using conventional routers, only the IP addresses of terminals are automatically settable by means of a DHCP server. However, all the ports of the routers on a network should be assigned different network addresses and the network addresses should be decided so as to be consistent with the DHCP server. Therefore, in the case of a large-scale network using a plurality of routers, the routers should be set manually, thus requiring a lot of work in setting the routers and terminals and performing a check operation for finding setting errors.
The circuit disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent No. 2679613 is based on the premise that the addresses of router devices are preset so that path information transmitted on a network is receivable, and is prevented from constructing a new network from a state without any address setting or resetting the network addresses of its own devices.